Customer Reviews

Alpha Centauri H

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

This is a difficult book to like. It does however strive to be what science fiction should be, which is a literature of ideas. As such, it presents an unflinching examination of the darker, complicated aspects of human nature and a profoundly unsympathetic cosmos. I am immediately reminded of the desolate final scenes of H G Wells' The Time Machine or the ruthlessly Darwinian universes of Stephen Baxter's Manifold stories.

In this novel, a group of explorers from a crowded solar system coming close to its malthusian limits arrives at the eponymous stellar system. They are part of an exploration fleet searching for potential colony sites that may be the salvation of humanity. They uncover the ancient ruins of an alien civilisation, maybe two civilisations. The solar system is threatened with total collapse whereas these aliens seemed to have kept their civilisation running for billions of years, but then they finally became extinct. Their worlds are ancient, depleted, but what caused them to die is not as simple as it may seem, and may be a warning to humankind.

What they learn about these beings seems horrible, but their are strange parallels with their own situation. Barton and Capobianco refuse to draw a sharp line between good and evil. They show the compulsions of hunger and sexuality as being intrinsic to life: they may be good, they may be vicious, but they are inseparable from the process of living. Human characters and aliens ephemerally resurrected through advanced simulations each display some aspect or other of the conflicts of desire, purpose and virtue.

To their credit, the authors allow even the apparent villains the qualities of intelligence, sympathy and the need for love, no matter how awful their actions. They argue that even the worst still must be acknowledged as our kin. The point being that one must realise honestly one's animal legacy, but somehow rise above it, and a purely reasonable approach may itself be insuffient. Indeed, as is suggested in the ideology of a shadowy terrorist group called Indigo and in the terminal ennui of a race dubbed the Leospiders, pure reason may lead only to extinction. On the other hand, false religion, shallow pop anthropology and other ideologies are held up only for cruel (and viscerally upsetting) parody.

A fault of this novel (if it is a fault as such) would be in the fact that what hope is offered is of a vague and hard to perceive. In fact, the conclusions are left quite open, balanced on a knife edge. The reader is challenged to argue their own case and their own causes for hope. It is a sceptical book, a hard book, but we do see people striving to be better than they might be. If anything, this is a novel not about the promise of a bright future, but the aching desire for hope.

Ultimately, they suggest whatever one does and whatever fate results from that, it is due to the exercise of awareness, responsibility and choice. Significantly, the most dangerous character, Mies, is also the most pitiful because he has allowed himself to become the puppet of conditioned reflexes, while the principle viewpoint character is named Kai, a word that we are told means "or", indicating uncertainty and ambiguity.

You may find yourself in profound disagreement with the authors, and put off by the frequent and graphic scenes of exploitation and abuse, but it will provoke you into thinking about the questions that they raise.

I think that it is just as confusing to write a review of this book as it was when I first starting reading this book. But here it goes. At first, I wanted to throw this book into the trash. The writing style was hard to follow (initially)and the subjects that were discussed in the novel were....uncomfortable. Which made me want to throw it away all the more. But I continued to read it and boy am I glad that I did. This book deals with so much more than those who have given it negative reviews here. Yes it deals with sex and sexuality. Yes it deals with science and the science of sex and sexuality. Yes it deals with science fiction and the sex behind the science fiction. But if that is all you get out of this book than you didn't dive deep enough into it or didn't finish it. It deals with human nature and our place within the cosmos based on an extinct alien society that is discovered. It plunges head long into human weaknesses and our lack of understanding. It deals with uncomfortable situations with uncomfortable characters. It asks us "do we have the right to be immortal?" "Should we want to be immortal?" Oh yes, folks. This book deals with much more than sex. Pick it up and don't throw it down...although you WILL feel like it, trust me.

A bleak story in an even bleaker future, wound together in an amazing novel. I've noticed that many reviewers here seem to be put off a bit by the amount, and sheer oddity, of the ... in this book. I was too until I realized what the authors were trying to convey...a future where the human race had already begun it's plummet into the abysses of eternity. The human race has nothing to live for and nothing to look forward to, so people only exist for the pleasure of the moment. If you can't understand why there would be a LOT of bizarre ... in a world and culture like that, this book is not for you. The bizarre ... of this novel forces you to realize that the Earth of the twenty third century is populated by people without morals, without caring, and without boundaries, and it forces you to come to grips with the desperation of the situation. You will also find youself debating whether mankind DESERVES its fate, or if we are all ultimately redeemable and deserve a second chance.

The story itself is about the crew of the Mother Night, a small ship launched into the darkness of space, looking to change all that. They are looking for a new home, and a new future, for humanity. What they find, and the lessons they learn, cast a grim pall over the future prospects for mankind. It is a powerful story that makes the reader wonder once more, "Why are we here, and what do we hope to accomplish?"

If you can avoid fixating on the ..., Alpha Centauri is a moving story that asks several deep philosophical questions. I recommend it strongly to anyone with an open mind.

If you are looking for a challenge, try reading "Alpha Centauri". This is a book that is undeniably difficult to read. It is slow moving, full of (sometimes maybe unneccassary) graphic and odd sexual acts, and just not very likeable.

BUT.... maybe it is difficult convey the type of darkly complex concepts that are expressed in this book without the type of framework it puts them in. Barton and Capobiance explore issues such as "what is the point of it all?" and "should we go on?" and provides starkly contrasting examples of some of the opinions that different people (and races) have on them. Such things are best examined in all their bleak detail under the mood created by the characters and circumstances of the book.

There are simularities between this book and Barton's "Acts of Concience" both in mood, and in content. They both involve a lot of sex, although "Alpha Centauri"'s is more frequent and arguably stranger(?) and the aliens (when we eventually do learn of them) display a similar master/slave relationship to the wolfen/dollies from "Acts of Conscience".

This book took me a long time to read, but towards the end became intensly interesting. Definately a book I will remember.

You may have picked up this book thinking it will say a lot about the nearest star system to our solar system. However this says nothing about the star system Alpha Centauri that you may not already know: that it's a trinary star system with the stars called Alpha Centauri-A, Alpha Centauri-B, and Alpha Centauri-C. Actually the book says less than you may know. That Alpha Centauri-C, a red dwarf, is also called Proxima Centauri because it is the actual closest individual star to our star system, and I don't recall that name coming up. Although it may have, what with scanning significant parts of this dull book in the attempt to just get it done with. There are other books with titles of astronomical bodies, Titan [1997] was written in a way that you actually felt like you were on that space body, in this case a moon of Saturn. However, that is no way even close to the case here.

Oh yeah, and there's the abundance of sex in this book. I think it might be fair to say that the sexual `situations' were a bit unorthodox. And with this being science fiction, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I thought it was a bit overdone, but mostly I think that because it overwhelmed the story that the title promised: Alpha Centauri. I think it would have been better if this book was marketed as a book about sexually modified humans. As it is, be prepared to read about someone's male genitals being lopped off and landing with a thud in a pan, and that a [...] and labia are created and an internalized [...] that emerges during an [...], such as with a dog or horse, is created. Now all this was mildly amusing, although a bit overdone and graphic. There may be those that might find it interesting to read, though they would never guess it from the title. And like those that were hoping to read more about Alpha Centauri and having to wade through a lot of unorthodox graphic sex, there will be those interested in reading about unorthodox sex that have to wade through scientific talk on a planet around Alpha Centauri. The unfortunate thing is that it was not a good blend of the two. And the book was too long and quite dull at times.

The book gets some credit and an extra star for bringing up the thought that if you live alone for a million years without contact with anyone else or any other intelligent species is there any point for continuing to exist. Two stars total.

Addendum: the Amazon censors have been busy with my review. Any words above in [...] are body parts that begin with v and p and one omitted word is a body part in a state of arousal. I did mean to keep the review as G-rated as possible but as a case in point it was difficult not to use some words as the book itself is filled with such terms.

This is a very strange book on top of being poorly written and poorly edited. I think two horny 17 year-olds wrote this. I should have given it two stars, but I liked it in a way, so I had to give it four. There is a lot of strange interstellar, futuristic sex in it (and if I say there's a lot of strange sex....). It was a real guilty pleasure and it got to the point that I needed to see how it was going to end. Will Earth be saved from its own mistakes? Will Kai the hermaphrodite (he had an operation to make him that way) choose to be with a woman or a man? What happened to the previous inhabitants of the Alpha Centauri solar system? Does Mies have multiple personalities and crazy or is he really a sleeper spy set on sterilizing women, one at a time?

Not only do the authors explore fun science and species functions, but they also explore human sexuality and various permutations. People have sex. People in sci-fi novels, however, rarely have sex, but the act is certainly part of the human condition.

I liked this book enough to have read it twice, and thoroughly enjoyed it both times. So: not everyone hated it. ;-)

I thought for a while I was in the middle of a sexual fantasy - a horny stream of consciousness that slipped from one scene to another. The authors continually fell into this mode as if that would make it somehow "literary". The premise is my biggest problem. To sum - it's the future and earth has 40 gazillion people who have squandered all the resources so mankind must find a new home. How fortuitous that one awaits (or so we hope) at our nearest star neighbor.

First, population growth has been revised downward by the UN two times in the last ten years due to decreasing birth rates around the world. Secondly, why would a society that creates starships not use artificial products instead of "using the Earth's resouces". If all the Earth's resources are used are people living on the magma core? And the idea that salvation comes by traveling to another star (at a cost so great one could literally rebuild Earth) is a solution? It is if the Earth is going to be destroyed but the task of starting over on a new world is so mind-boggling that it makes the Earth's problems seem petty.

Good parts: The VR machines (neat!), the discoveries, the resident evil and the ending.

This is not a novel to be devoured on a summer day at the beach or by anyone without at least a layman's interest in theoretical physics, stellar cartography, or geology. In addition, if you're put off by extreme sexual situations including rape, incest, and child abuse, don't go here. This is a very, very bleak novel with very complex, emotionally-damaged characters.

Not to say that the subject matter isn't relevant to the plot, because it is - to a point. Alpha Centauri contains some of the most brilliant extrapolations in the area of theoretical physics, genetic engineering, and nanotech phages that I've read. The very idea of the Synchronoptic Analysis Engine is so, well, out there, that at first you'll want to wave it off as another magical Star Trek construct... until and unless you take the time to really understand how it works. Mies Cochrane's human-induced multiple personality disorder, along with his cargo of sterilizing sperm is brilliant, once you wade through the psychobabble that accompanies his character's interior monologue. The authors' portrait of a dead solar system, complete with extinct races, is excellently done. Barton and Copobianco definitely know their stuff when it comes to science. They may also know their stuff when it comes to shocking the reader with explicit sex acts, but the sexual antics of the crew are so often revisited that one begins to scan through them, looking for something more palatable. There is also a tendency for the authors to fall into a stylistically challenging stream-of-consciousness narrative style that leaves the reader wondering who is doing the thinking, and what they're thinking about.

This is a philosophical SF piece, to be sure. There are some great ideas in these pages, if you can punch your way through some very confusing passages on the nature of humanity - a nature, Barton and Copobianco remind us, that might cry out for extinction. Extremely bleak, low-key stuff.

As always with William Barton's work, both alone and with Cappobianco, Alpha Centuri is bleak but occasionally uplifting. Rather too sexual, even considering the sexual nature of the topic (which is, really, reproduction) the authors give us a future where various members of various powers vie for the future of humanity. The twist, here, is that one of the possible futures, indeed, the likely one, is extinction. Similar in many ways to Barton's recent works, this is space-opera for the postmodern age, with believable science (though one doesn't WANT to believe it) and great characters. A must read, though these two have done better.